--- title: "To Be Read at Dusk by Charles Dickens — Classic Ebook | Publica Now" description: "Read a free sample of To Be Read at Dusk by Charles Dickens at Publica Now — a public-domain classic ebook, readable online." canonical: "https://publica.now/creators/vito/works/to-be-read-at-dusk" --- Literary # To Be Read at Dusk by Charles Dickens [ V Vito ](https://publica.now/creators/vito) Follow $2.99 [ Sign in to buy ](https://publica.now/access?redirect=%2Fcheckout%2Fto-be-read-at-dusk) Secure payment on Stripe. publica.now never sees your card. Share Link copied Format epub Published May 02, 2026 Rating No reviews yet ![To Be Read at Dusk](https://fls-a13cb2d7-1b3e-4883-a0bd-297afd110a11.367be3a2035528943240074d0096e0cd.r2.cloudflarestorage.com/works/01kqn114kr21p19ezwbmzc9g0y/editions/2026-09-06-html-v1/cover.png?X-Amz-Content-Sha256=UNSIGNED-PAYLOAD&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=d29ce3bb571c165c97a702f29f7aee93%2F20260925%2Fauto%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20260925T024843Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=3600&X-Amz-Signature=b400f5f039c4b68f594929b909ee1a050c3b466bdc49b7c9bcf5c74d81acbf75) ## About this work As evening settles over the Great St. Bernard, five couriers sit outside a mountain convent while the last red light drains from the snow. Around them lie the cold, lonely heights, a shed where the bodies of belated travellers slowly wither, and an atmosphere made for strange conversation. When talk turns to ghosts, one courier insists that the uncanny is not rare at all. He recalls invisible messengers, the sudden certainty that a distant friend is near, and a woman who feels her sister’s cold touch at the instant of her death. Dickens frames these unsettling possibilities with vivid Alpine scenery, wry observation, and the intimate rhythm of travellers sharing stories after sunset. To Be Read at Dusk is a compact, atmospheric ghost story about the mysterious connections that may reach across distance, danger, and the boundaries of ordinary experience. This Publica.now Classics edition includes a new typographic cover and publisher opening and closing pages. Sample ## Take a look inside Transcribed from the 1905 Chapman & Hall edition (The Works of Charles Dickens, volume 28) by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org To be Read at Dusk By CHARLES DICKENS LONDON: CHAPMAN & HALL, LD. NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 1905 One, two, three, four, five. There were five of them. Five couriers, sitting on a bench outside the convent on the summit of the Great St. Bernard in Switzerland, looking at the remote heights, stained by the setting sun as if a mighty quantity of red wine had been broached upon the mountain top, and had not yet had time to sink into the snow. This is not my simile. It was made for the occasion by the stoutest courier, who was a German. None of the others took any more notice of it than they took of me, sitting on another bench on the other side of the convent door, smoking my cigar, like them, and—also like them—looking at the reddened snow, and at the lonely shed hard by, where the bodies of belated travellers, dug out of it, slowly wither away, knowing no corruption in that cold region. The wine upon the mountain top soaked in as we looked; the mountain became white; the sky, a very dark blue; the wind rose; and the air turned piercing cold. The five couriers buttoned their rough coats. There being no safer man to imitate in all such proceedings than a courier, I buttoned mine. The mountain in the sunset had stopped the five couriers in a conversation. It is a sublime sight, likely to stop conversation. The mountain being now out of the sunset, they resumed. Not that I had heard any part of their previous discourse; for indeed, I had not then broken away from the American gentleman, in the… [ Sign in to buy ](https://publica.now/access?redirect=%2Fcheckout%2Fto-be-read-at-dusk) The sample continues in the full work. [ #Ghost stories ](/search?query=Ghost+stories) [ #Dickens ](/search?query=Dickens) [ #supernatural ](/search?query=supernatural) [ #Gothic ](/search?query=Gothic) [ #Victorian ](/search?query=Victorian) [ #Switzerland ](/search?query=Switzerland) [ #couriers ](/search?query=couriers) [ #travel ](/search?query=travel) ## Reviews No reviews yet. Be the first to share your thoughts. [Sign in to leave a review](https://publica.now/access?redirect=%2Fcreators%2Fvito%2Fworks%2Fto-be-read-at-dusk) No reviews yet. Be the first to share your thoughts. You might also like ## More like this [View all →](/marketplace?content_type=literary) [ ![The Lamplighter](https://fls-a13cb2d7-1b3e-4883-a0bd-297afd110a11.367be3a2035528943240074d0096e0cd.r2.cloudflarestorage.com/works/01kqn115dznp4v572f3hfdk3a0/editions/2026-09-06-html-v1/cover.png?X-Amz-Content-Sha256=UNSIGNED-PAYLOAD&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=d29ce3bb571c165c97a702f29f7aee93%2F20260925%2Fauto%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20260925T024844Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=3600&X-Amz-Signature=1d119095d5c43bfd4aba504ef38b0ed4032f7170e7d9e32197352d52f0710ba7) Literary ### The Lamplighter Vito $2.99 11 ](/creators/vito/works/the-lamplighter) [ ![Little Dorrit](https://fls-a13cb2d7-1b3e-4883-a0bd-297afd110a11.367be3a2035528943240074d0096e0cd.r2.cloudflarestorage.com/works/01kqn12f70s3dmkb9pjtqxcgst/editions/2026-09-06-html-v1/cover.png?X-Amz-Content-Sha256=UNSIGNED-PAYLOAD&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=d29ce3bb571c165c97a702f29f7aee93%2F20260925%2Fauto%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20260925T024844Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=3600&X-Amz-Signature=2b5f651b53202e9bf7ebfd253ea2b32b848c56896852e2fd95a135182cbff1fa) Literary ### Little Dorrit Vito $2.99 11 ](/creators/vito/works/little-dorrit) [ ![Nicholas Nickleby](https://fls-a13cb2d7-1b3e-4883-a0bd-297afd110a11.367be3a2035528943240074d0096e0cd.r2.cloudflarestorage.com/works/01kqn134r5w9xz8506pz1dzc10/editions/2026-09-06-html-v1/cover.png?X-Amz-Content-Sha256=UNSIGNED-PAYLOAD&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=d29ce3bb571c165c97a702f29f7aee93%2F20260925%2Fauto%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20260925T024844Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=3600&X-Amz-Signature=43f8aac29586c1ab6366b9e383fa641713a1dfa48d8fe73011aa2e4aa94b82b1) Literary ### Nicholas Nickleby Vito $2.99 11 ](/creators/vito/works/nicholas-nickleby) [ ![Martin Chuzzlewit](https://fls-a13cb2d7-1b3e-4883-a0bd-297afd110a11.367be3a2035528943240074d0096e0cd.r2.cloudflarestorage.com/works/01kqn137ff0t8psdb0ar6e6g5x/editions/2026-09-06-html-v1/cover.png?X-Amz-Content-Sha256=UNSIGNED-PAYLOAD&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=d29ce3bb571c165c97a702f29f7aee93%2F20260925%2Fauto%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20260925T024844Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=3600&X-Amz-Signature=ca161a0640c9b3d8e5dea05a522938e35ca911203546ffb382b910ba39b43f55) Literary ### Martin Chuzzlewit Vito $2.99 12 ](/creators/vito/works/martin-chuzzlewit) [ ![Bleak House](https://fls-a13cb2d7-1b3e-4883-a0bd-297afd110a11.367be3a2035528943240074d0096e0cd.r2.cloudflarestorage.com/works/01kqn14mc3bgkvdscn02t5jwmv/editions/2026-09-06-html-v1/cover.png?X-Amz-Content-Sha256=UNSIGNED-PAYLOAD&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=d29ce3bb571c165c97a702f29f7aee93%2F20260925%2Fauto%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20260925T024844Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=3600&X-Amz-Signature=a6e8c517af2d4e4253d6289ebb7174c476c27d9f6b22955e2fa1edc9d8335ba7) Literary ### Bleak House Vito $2.99 12 ](/creators/vito/works/bleak-house) [ ![Three Ghost Stories](https://fls-a13cb2d7-1b3e-4883-a0bd-297afd110a11.367be3a2035528943240074d0096e0cd.r2.cloudflarestorage.com/works/01kqn1bqtg96axxyvwct7998tp/editions/2026-09-06-html-v1/cover.png?X-Amz-Content-Sha256=UNSIGNED-PAYLOAD&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=d29ce3bb571c165c97a702f29f7aee93%2F20260925%2Fauto%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20260925T024844Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=3600&X-Amz-Signature=051e082a4ee81ec950019f5756fb50984512086b0c706f3c35128187c36fefb6) Literary ### Three Ghost Stories Vito $2.99 12 ](/creators/vito/works/three-ghost-stories) [ ![The Seven Poor Travellers](https://fls-a13cb2d7-1b3e-4883-a0bd-297afd110a11.367be3a2035528943240074d0096e0cd.r2.cloudflarestorage.com/works/01kqn1dv9zz2k6trcscj062c08/editions/2026-09-06-html-v1/cover.png?X-Amz-Content-Sha256=UNSIGNED-PAYLOAD&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=d29ce3bb571c165c97a702f29f7aee93%2F20260925%2Fauto%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20260925T024844Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=3600&X-Amz-Signature=9566c48848de1759b13c6341acd768557188aa29cdba81325cddd22bb40b6db2) Literary ### The Seven Poor Travellers Vito $2.99 13 ](/creators/vito/works/the-seven-poor-travellers) [ ![The Holly-Tree](https://fls-a13cb2d7-1b3e-4883-a0bd-297afd110a11.367be3a2035528943240074d0096e0cd.r2.cloudflarestorage.com/works/01kqn1dwmeq2t80dgx68g5jbvw/editions/2026-09-06-html-v1/cover.png?X-Amz-Content-Sha256=UNSIGNED-PAYLOAD&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=d29ce3bb571c165c97a702f29f7aee93%2F20260925%2Fauto%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20260925T024844Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=3600&X-Amz-Signature=0460ed167de1aa3ca7d38ae82facf0f86b995e16feb24c41f6cc71f0dbcfac4b) Literary ### The Holly-Tree Vito $2.99 16 ](/creators/vito/works/the-holly-tree) $2.99 [ Sign in to buy ](https://publica.now/access?redirect=%2Fcheckout%2Fto-be-read-at-dusk)